Sustainable provision of water and food – the Water and Food Award

This is an extract from my  presentation as Application Manager of the Water and Food Award at  the recent Ambassadors event at the Marriott hotel in Copenhagen on 2 March 2010.

They say that at the beginning of every century, major changes, inconceivable in the previous century, manifest themselves. In the last century few thought man could fly, but here we are! What are the inconceivable changes awaiting us in this century? We hear people saying that feeding everyone on the planet is one of these grand challenges that we inconceivably can win over. At present, over one billion are starving and the population is set to increase in our lifetimes, or the lifetimes of the generation after ours, to nine billion.

Our task at WAF is bring attention to the situation and the challenge in a way that offers a message of hope. That means promoting sustainable solutions to feeding the planet. But what is a sustainable situation? […]